Belgian Beat Brigade!
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BELGIAN BEAT BRIGADE! Belgium’s contribution to dance music is often overlooked, but throughout the '80s and '90s the country produced some of the world’s most infl uential electronic music. With Belgium Booms, a series of events in London this October showcasing the country’s talent, and a new fi lm The Sound Of Belgium looking to change that public perception, we take a closer look at the country that gave us EBM, new beat, hardcore techno and so much more... Words: JOHN POWER rom a few likely lads holidaying in themselves for this oversight. Ibiza to clubs like Shoom, The Trip and “It's mostly due to our own lack of interest,” he sighs. “Even after 20 the wild excesses of the rave scene, years I'm still the fi rst to tackle this subject. If this had happened in the story of how acid house took root Holland there would have been dozens of books and documentaries in the British Isles is a familiar, if about it because they are proud of their culture, the French and the still entertaining, tale. Britain’s rave Germans are too, and well of course, especially the English, but us revolution didn’t occur in splendid Belgians… if we have something worth talking about, we’ll be the isolation though and by the time last ones to.” Britain’s youth were dicking about in In Antwerp’s Ancienne, Belqique DJs like Ronnie Harmsen were dungarees and getting right-on-one-matey, a similar scene was creating an eclectic scene mixing the harder sequenced sounds of already fi rmly established in Belgium. Only this one, rather than EBM with leftfi eld new-wave pop by Belgian bands like Allez Allez, beingF soundtracked by imported vinyl from Chicago and Detroit, and everything from Bauhaus’ gloomy goth-rock to the experimental was being driven by a homemade sound — new beat. sounds of Klaus Schulze and Steve Reich. Every weekend, queues By the mid '80s Belgium already had a strong electronic music would stretch around the block as the resident DJs put together sets pedigree, having gifted the world the stern sounds of Electronic with the same attention to detail, passion and sense of drama as that Body Music. Powered by the availability of cheap synthesisers, of their more famous American peers like David Mancuso or Larry post-punk Belgian bands like Front-242 spliced Throbbing Gristle’s Levan. industrial noise with the clean Körpermusik of Kraftwerk to create Then in 1987 Dikke Ronny, then resident DJ at the Café d’Anvers, a muscular, martial sound that would in turn infl uence many of would take Belgian electro act A Split Second’s ‘Flesh’, slow the vinyl Detroit’s techno pioneers. Charting the rise and fall of the country’s down to 33rpm +8, and in doing so, would create the famous new club culture, new feature-length documentary, The Sound Of beat sound. The effect was electric. Slowed down, the music became Belgium, out this month, is at turns both funny and sad as the likes even more powerful, the bass became more pronounced and other of Telex’s Dan Lacksman, CJ Bolland and Renaat Vandepapeliere from DJs took note. Labels began to re-release records in this new slowed- R&S recount how this small self-effacing country found itself to be down style and Belgian producers began to adopt this slower groove the epicentre of Europe’s techno scene. into their original productions. SLOWER GROOVE Clubs like the soon to be legendary Boccaccio became temples to Despite its pivotal role in the evolution of electronic music, Belgium’s this new beat, whilst the infl uential Liaisons Dangereuses radio show contribution rarely gets the attention it deserves, not that The broadcast the sound to the whole country. New beat exploded across Sound Of Belgium director Jozef Devillé blames anyone but Belgians Belgium. Unlike the acid house parties across the channel though, %& RX[OUQ][ RX[OUQ][ DJ526.belgian.indd 78 16/9/13 18:26:01 THE SOUNDS OF BELGIUM – FIVE TRACKS THAT DEFINE A Brussels and Antwerp would soon go NATION on to have a massive infl uence on Dan Lacksman the UK’s own nascent rave scene. “The UK rave sound was completely FRONT 242 CJ Bolland inspired by hearing those Belgian 'Special Forces' (1984) riffs,” admits Optimo’s JD Twitch in Packed full of stuttering samples, the fi lm, as what Belgian producers portentous vocals, industrial bass and did one week, British producers primitive drum machines locked into a rushed to copy the next. martial stomp, ‘Special Forces’ taken from Front 242’s second album ‘No Comment’ It wasn’t just the UK that was falling defi ned the EBM aesthetic. under the Belgian spell, and by now the shockwaves given off by the A SPLIT SECOND country’s hardcore attitude were 'Flesh' (1986) reaching further than just across the It was A Split Second’s 1986 single ‘Flesh’ that channel. From New York to Tokyo, DJ Dikke Ronny thought would sound better producers like Joey Beltram and Ken slowed down to 33rpm +8, and he was right. Ishii were not only being inspired New beat had its fi rst anthem. by the Belgian sound, but were the atmosphere the new beat DJs looked to create also fi nding a home on the country’s labels like RAVESIGNAL III was far from euphoric. At Boccaccio DJs would keep the pioneering R&S, whilst Detroit’s Underground 'Horsepower' (1991) the punishingly loud music pounding at a grinding Resistance would acknowledge the country’s scene One of CJ Bolland’s many releases for R&S, tempo, selecting the darkest-sounding tracks as with 1992’s ‘Belgian Resistance’ EP. The boom time 'Horsepower' is Belgian techno at its fi nest. lasers strafed the 3000-plus Belgian youths who’d couldn’t last though, and whilst bombastic techno Packed full of trancey riffs, sledgehammer beats pack out the club every Sunday. The effect was as and the easy availability of ecstasy were fuelling and Belgian hardcore attitude, it stills sounds as intimidating as it was exhilarating. wild nights in the clubs, the accelerated tempos incredible today as it did on its release in 1991. Belgium’s youth lapped it up. New beat burst out were also speeding the scene towards its downfall. of the clubs and onto the streets, its devotees Whilst new beat had been co-opted by the pop 2MANYDJS dressed in a mix of new romantic and acid house mainstream, records like T99’s ‘Anasthasia’ were 'As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt.2' (2002) styles — crucifi xes, smiley faces and a Beastie Boys- too savage, too wild to be tamed. For the Belgian The only Radio Soulwax mix offi cially released esque obsession with wearing stolen car decals as authorities, much like the Tory government in the and one of the most infl uential DJ mixes ever. An jewelery. At this point the mainstream may have UK, the idea of a generation getting high as kites eclectic mix of rock, pop, hip-hop, electro and the been doing its best to ignore it but the kids were and dancing to this aggressive anti-music was just Dewaele’s own bootlegs, its anything-goes spirit buying new beat records like Erotic Dissidents' too much to countenance. redefi ned what club music could be in the 21st ‘Move Your Ass and Feel the Beat’ in their tens of In the early '90s the crackdown began. Police century. thousands. stepped up their raids, and club closures were As is often the case, success would ultimately lead commonplace. One by one these temples to COMPUPHONIC to saturation and with easy money to be made every techno were targeted and by 1993 even the 'Sunset' (2012) producer and has-been singer rushed to release a legendary Boccaccio had closed its doors for the The ne plus ultra of Belgium’s recent Balearic house new beat record. By the end of the '80s Belgium’s last time. As the credits roll, Devillé’s fi lm ends on sound, Liege producer Compuphonic’s dreamy end- pop charts were dominated by new beat tracks, with a sombre note, as a movement that had united an of-day anthem has clocked up over 4,000,000 YouTube bands like Confetti’s and Plaza created to provide a often divided country was cut off in its prime. The plays since its release, and its ubiquitous presence recognizable face to the music that could fi ll arenas music they made and that features in The Sound throughout the summer months has ensured its status with mainstream pop fans dancing to sanitized new Of Belgium would continue to infl uence producers as a modern day Ibiza classic. beat pop hits. Barely two years from its birth new for decades to come but whilst Belgian labels, DJs beat was dead and buried, but whilst the pop charts and producers may have been revered abroad, were full of watered-down imitations, many Belgian at home the party was over… for the time being at producers had already moved on. least. HARDER AND DARKER As the world at large began to tentatively embrace electronic music, Belgian producers like CJ Bolland shifted their focus to producing music that was harder, more aggressive, darker than anyone else had dared till then. “Sequenced music like EBM or techno or new beat, music programmed with computers, you cannot miss a beat, you can set your watch to it, it’s too perfect and for a lot of people it feels unnatural,” explains Devillé.